Clean Technology Council Meeting ViaSource CEO, Len Linton was asked to discuss how ViaSource is one of the greenest and cleanest businesses imaginable. The talk was titled: “Why we moved our Contact Center business to the Cloud” Len described some of the intrinsic operational and financial elements of a bricks and mortar call center and then contrasted those with the stats in a model cloud based contact center. There are major operational differences between the two contact center models, but the cloud based center is hands down the most efficient and effective organizational strategy. It all starts with agent recruiting and training. Agents no longer drive to work and are therefore recruited from all over north America and can get involved if they have the right skills AND a broadband internet connection. Job opportunities and posted on a myriad of websites and applicants apply online to a specially constructed website. Included in the onboarding process are assessments, test of the prospect’s internet connection, computer, and their speaking voice. This is a very objective self-paced process that separates tire kickers from committed contact center agents. All applicants must have prior call center experience. Training takes a similar innovative tact. Self-paced e-learning and extensive use of role play via GoToMeeting sessions prepares agents for real life campaigns. The real benefits to the company that wants to outsource customer service, to launch a lead generation program, to find a company to receive inbound calls are simple…..the benefits are lower cost and higher quality. The cost structure is virtually all variable and there are no limits to scalability, given the lack of system constraints and the scope of geography available for recruitment. Quality is a multifaceted result of highly skilled managers training, coaching and monitoring associates, from their own home offices, a highly sophisticated hosted contact center system and better agents dealing with customers on a flex scheduling (though tightly enforced ) workforce management structure. Customer Costs for Offshore: India, Asia, the Philippines range from $6-10 per hour, Near-shore: Caribbean, Central and South America range from $12-16 per hour and bricks and mortar centers in North American range from $20 -35 per hour. 1NWContact straddles the latter two ranges and will compete with any North American Call Center on quality, professionalism, flexibility and performance. This is all possible because the ViaSource business model is based upon a clean, green, cloud based strategy!